Universal mobile telecommunications system (UMTS) is a 3rd generation (3G) asynchronous mobile communication system operating in wideband code division multiple access (WCDMA) based on European systems, global system for mobile communications (GSM) and general packet radio services (GPRS). The long-term evolution (LTE) of UMTS is under discussion by the 3rd generation partnership project (3GPP) that standardized UMTS.
The 3GPP LTE is a technology for enabling high-speed packet communications. Many schemes have been proposed for the LTE objective including those that aim to reduce user and provider costs, improve service quality, and expand and improve coverage and system capacity. The 3GPP LTE requires reduced cost per bit, increased service availability, flexible use of a frequency band, a simple structure, an open interface, and adequate power consumption of a terminal as an upper-level requirement.
FIG. 1 shows network structure of an evolved universal mobile telecommunication system (E-UMTS). The E-UMTS may be also referred to as an LTE system. The communication network is widely deployed to provide a variety of communication services such as voice over Internet protocol (VoIP) through IMS and packet data.
As shown in FIG. 1, the E-UMTS network includes an evolved UMTS terrestrial radio access network (E-UTRAN), an evolved packet core (EPC) and one or more user equipment. The E-UTRAN may include one or more evolved NodeB (eNB) 20, and a plurality of user equipment (UE) 10 may be located in one cell. One or more EUTRAN mobility management entity (MME)/system architecture evolution (SAE) gateways (S-GW) 30 may be positioned at the end of the network and connected to an external network.
As used herein, “downlink” refers to communication from the eNB 20 to the UE 10, and “uplink” refers to communication from the UE 10 to the eNB 20. The UE 10 refers to communication equipment carried by a user and may be also referred to as a mobile station (MS), a user terminal (UT), a subscriber station (SS) or a wireless device.
The eNB 20 provides end points of a user plane and a control plane to the UE 10. The MME/S-GW 30 provides an end point of a session and mobility management function for the UE 10. The eNB and MME/S-GW may be connected via an S1 interface.
The eNB 20 is generally a fixed station that communicates with the UE 10, and may also be referred to as a base station (BS) or an access point. One eNB 20 may be deployed per cell. An interface for transmitting user traffic or control traffic may be used between eNBs 20.
The MME provides various functions including non-access stratum (NAS) signaling to the eNBs 20, NAS signaling security, access stratum (AS) security control, inter core network (CN) node signaling for mobility between 3GPP access networks, idle mode UE reachability (including control and execution of paging retransmission), tracking area list management (for UE in idle and active mode), packet data network (PDN) GW and serving GW selection, MME selection for handovers with MME change, serving GPRS support node (SGSN) selection for handovers to 2G or 3G 3GPP access networks, roaming, authentication, bearer management functions including dedicated bearer establishment, support for public warning system (PWS) (which includes earthquake and tsunami warning system (ETWS) and commercial mobile alert system (CMAS)) message transmission. The S-GW host provides assorted functions including per-user based packet filtering (by e.g., deep packet inspection), lawful interception, UE IP address allocation, transport level packet marking in the downlink, UL and DL service level charging, gating and rate enforcement, DL rate enforcement based on APN-AMBR. For clarity, the MME/S-GW 30 will be referred to herein simply as a “gateway,” but it is understood that this entity includes both the MME and the SAE gateway.
A plurality of nodes may be connected between the eNB 20 and the gateway 30 via the S1 interface. The eNBs 20 may be connected to each other via an X2 interface and neighboring eNBs may have a meshed network structure that has the X2 interface.
FIG. 2 shows architecture of a typical E-UTRAN and a typical EPC.
As shown, the eNB 20 may perform functions of selection for the gateway 30, routing toward the gateway during a radio resource control (RRC) activation, scheduling and transmitting of paging messages, scheduling and transmitting of broadcast channel (BCH) information, dynamic allocation of resources to the UEs 10 in both uplink and downlink, configuration and provisioning of eNB measurements, radio bearer control, radio admission control (RAC), and connection mobility control in LTE_ACTIVE state. In the EPC, and as noted above, the gateway 30 may perform functions of paging origination, LTE_IDLE state management, ciphering of the user plane, SAE bearer control, and ciphering and integrity protection of NAS signaling.
FIG. 3 shows a user-plane protocol and a control-plane protocol stack for an E-UMTS.
FIG. 3(a) is block diagram depicting the user-plane protocol, and FIG. 3(b) is block diagram depicting the control-plane protocol. As shown, the protocol layers may be divided into a first layer (L1), a second layer (L2) and a third layer (L3) based upon the three lower layers of an open system interconnection (OSI) standard model that is well known in the art of communication systems.
The physical layer, the L1, provides an information transmission service to an upper layer by using a physical channel. The physical layer is connected with a medium access control (MAC) layer located at a higher level through a transport channel, and data between the MAC layer and the physical layer is transferred via the transport channel. Between different physical layers, namely, between physical layers of a transmission side and a reception side, data is transferred via the physical channel.
The MAC layer of the L2 provides services to a radio link control (RLC) layer (which is a higher layer) via a logical channel. The RLC layer of the L2 supports the transmission of data with reliability. It should be noted that the RLC layer shown in FIGS. 3(a) and 3(b) is depicted because if the RLC functions are implemented in and performed by the MAC layer, the RLC layer itself is not required. A packet data convergence protocol (PDCP) layer of the L2 performs a header compression function that reduces unnecessary control information such that data being transmitted by employing IP packets, such as IPv4 or IPv6, can be efficiently sent over a radio (wireless) interface that has a relatively small bandwidth.
A radio resource control (RRC) layer located at the lowest portion of the L3 is only defined in the control plane and controls logical channels, transport channels and the physical channels in relation to the configuration, reconfiguration, and release of the radio bearers (RBs). Here, the RB signifies a service provided by the L2 for data transmission between the terminal and the UTRAN.
As shown in FIG. 3(a), the RLC and MAC layers (terminated in the eNB 20 on the network side) may perform functions such as scheduling, automatic repeat request (ARQ), and hybrid automatic repeat request (HARM). The PDCP layer (terminated in the eNB 20 on the network side) may perform the user plane functions such as header compression, integrity protection, and ciphering.
As shown in FIG. 3(b), the RLC and MAC layers (terminated in the eNodeB 20 on the network side) perform the same functions for the control plane. As shown, the RRC layer (terminated in the eNB 20 on the network side) may perform functions such as broadcasting, paging, RRC connection management, RB control, mobility functions, and UE measurement reporting and controlling. The NAS control protocol (terminated in the MME of gateway 30 on the network side) may perform functions such as a SAE bearer management, authentication, LTE_IDLE mobility handling, paging origination in LTE_IDLE, and security control for the signaling between the gateway and UE the 10.
The RRC state may be divided into two different states such as a RRC_IDLE and a RRC_CONNECTED. In RRC_IDLE state, the UE 10 may receive broadcasts of system information and paging information while the UE specifies a discontinuous reception (DRX) configured by NAS, and the UE has been allocated an identification (ID) which uniquely identifies the UE in a tracking area and may perform PLMN selection and cell re-selection. Also, in RRC_IDLE state, no RRC context is stored in the eNB.
In RRC_CONNECTED state, the UE 10 has an E-UTRAN RRC connection and a context in the E-UTRAN, such that transmitting and/or receiving data to/from the network (eNB) becomes possible. Also, the UE 10 can report channel quality information and feedback information to the eNB.
In RRC_CONNECTED state, the E-UTRAN knows the cell to which the UE 10 belongs. Therefore, the network can transmit and/or receive data to/from the UE 10, the network can control mobility (handover and inter-radio access technologies (RAT) cell change order to GSM EDGE radio access network (GERAN) with network assisted cell change (NACC)) of the UE, and the network can perform cell measurements for a neighboring cell.
In RRC_IDLE state, the UE 10 specifies the paging DRX cycle. Specifically, the UE 10 monitors a paging signal at a specific paging occasion of every UE specific paging DRX cycle.
The paging occasion is a time interval during which a paging signal is transmitted. The UE 10 has its own paging occasion.
A paging message is transmitted over all cells belonging to the same tracking area. If the UE 10 moves from one tracking area to another tracking area, the UE will send a tracking area update message to the network to update its location.
FIG. 4 shows a structure of a physical channel.
The physical channel transfers signaling and data between layer L1 of the UE and eNB. As shown in FIG. 4, the physical channel transfers the signaling and data with a radio resource, which consists of one or more sub-carriers in frequency and one more symbols in time.
One sub-frame, which is 1 ms in length, consists of several symbols. The particular symbol(s) of the sub-frame, such as the first symbol of the sub-frame, can be used for downlink control channel (PDCCH). PDCCHs carry dynamic allocated resources, such as physical resource blocks (PRBs) and modulation and coding scheme (MCS).
A transport channel transfers signaling and data between the L1 and MAC layers. A physical channel is mapped to a transport channel.
Downlink transport channel types include a broadcast channel (BCH), a downlink shared channel (DL-SCH), a paging channel (PCH) and a multicast channel (MCH). The BCH is used for transmitting system information. The DL-SCH supports HARQ, dynamic link adaptation by varying the modulation, coding and transmit power, and both dynamic and semi-static resource allocation. The DL-SCH also may enable broadcast in the entire cell and the use of beamforming. The PCH is used for paging the UE. The MCH is used for multicast or broadcast service transmission.
Uplink transport channel types include an uplink shared channel (UL-SCH) and random access channel(s) (RACH). The UL-SCH supports HARQ and dynamic link adaptation by varying the transmit power and potentially modulation and coding. The UL-SCH also may enable the use of beamforming. The RACH is normally used for initial access to a cell.
The MAC sublayer provides data transfer services on logical channels. A set of logical channel types is defined for different data transfer services offered by MAC. Each logical channel type is defined according to the type of information transferred.
Logical channels are generally classified into two groups. The two groups are control channels for the transfer of control plane information and traffic channels for the transfer of user plane information.
Control channels are used for transfer of control plane information only. The control channels provided by MAC include a broadcast control channel (BCCH), a paging control channel (PCCH), a common control channel (CCCH), a multicast control channel (MCCH) and a dedicated control channel (DCCH). The BCCH is a downlink channel for broadcasting system control information. The PCCH is a downlink channel that transfers paging information and is used when the network does not know the location cell of the UE. The CCCH is used by UEs having no RRC connection with the network. The MCCH is a point-to-multipoint downlink channel used for transmitting MBMS control information from the network to the UE. The DCCH is a point-to-point bi-directional channel used by UEs having an RRC connection that transmits dedicated control information between the UE and the network.
Traffic channels are used for the transfer of user plane information only. The traffic channels provided by MAC include a dedicated traffic channel (DTCH) and a multicast traffic channel (MTCH). The DTCH is a point-to-point channel, dedicated to one UE for the transfer of user information and can exist in both uplink and downlink. The MTCH is a point-to-multipoint downlink channel for transmitting traffic data from the network to the UE.
Uplink connections between logical channels and transport channels include a DCCH that can be mapped to the UL-SCH, a DTCH that can be mapped to the UL-SCH and a CCCH that can be mapped to the UL-SCH. Downlink connections between logical channels and transport channels include a BCCH that can be mapped to the BCH or the DL-SCH, a PCCH that can be mapped to the PCH, a DCCH that can be mapped to the DL-SCH, and a DTCH that can be mapped to the DL-SCH, a MCCH that can be mapped to the MCH, and a MTCH that can be mapped to the MCH.
A home eNB (HeNB) is described. It may be referred to Section 4.6 of 3GPP TS 36.300 V10.5.0 (2011-09).
The E-UTRAN architecture may deploy a HeNB gateway (HeNB GW) to allow the S1 interface between the HeNB and the EPC to support a large number of HeNBs in a scalable manner. The HeNB GW serves as a concentrator for the control plane (C-Plane), specifically the S1-MME interface. The S1-U interface from the HeNB may be terminated at the HeNB GW, or a direct logical user plane (U-Plane) connection between the HeNB and the S-GW may be used.
The S1 interface is defined as the interface:                Between the HeNB GW and the core network,        Between the HeNB and the HeNB GW,        Between the HeNB and the core network,        Between the eNB and the core network.        
The HeNB GW appears to the MME as an eNB. The HeNB GW appears to the HeNB as an MME. The S1 interface between the HeNB and the EPC is the same, regardless whether the HeNB is connected to the EPC via the HeNB GW or not.
The HeNB GW shall connect to the EPC in a way that inbound and outbound mobility to cells served by the HeNB GW shall not necessarily require inter MME handovers. One HeNB serves only one cell.
The functions supported by the HeNB shall be the same as those supported by the eNB (with possible exceptions, e.g., NAS node selection function (NNSF)) and the procedures run between the HeNB and the EPC shall be the same as those between the eNB and the EPC (with possible exceptions, e.g., S5 procedures in case of local IP access (LIPA) support).
FIG. 5 shows overall E-UTRAN architecture with deployed HeNB GW.
Referring to FIG. 5, the E-UTRAN includes eNBs 50, HeNBs 60 and HeNB GW 69. One or more E-UTRAN MME/S-GW 59 may be positioned at the end of the network and connected to an external network. The eNBs 50 are connected to each other through the X2 interface. The eNBs 50 are connected to the MME/S-GW 59 through the S1 interface. The HeNB GW 69 is connected to the MME/S-GW 59 through the S1 interface. The HeNBs 60 are connected to the HeNB GW 69 through the S1 interface or are connected to the MME/S-GW 59 through the S1 interface or S5 interface.
Referring to FIG. 5, the HeNBs 60 are connected to each other through the X2 interface. Only the HeNBs with the same closed subscriber group (CSG) identifiers (IDs) may have the direct X2 interface even if some HeNBs may support a hybrid mode. If specific conditions are satisfied, handover may be done through direct X2 interface. That is, X2-based handover between HeNBs may be allowed if no access control at the MME is needed, i.e., when the handover is between closed/hybrid access HeNBs having the same CSG IDs or when the target HeNB is an open access HeNB.
Moreover, the X2 interface between a HeNB and macro eNB have been discussed for X2 handover between the HeNB and macro eNB. A direct X2 interface or an indirect X2 interface between the HeNB and macro eNB may be set up.
A transport network layer (TNL) address discovery is described. If the eNB is aware of the eNB ID of the candidate eNB (e.g., via the automatic neighbor relation (ANR) function) but not a TNL address suitable for stream control transmission protocol (SCTP) connectivity, then the eNB can utilize the configuration transfer function to determine the TNL address as follows:                The eNB sends the eNB configuration transfer message to the MME to request the TNL address of the candidate eNB, and includes relevant information such as the source and target eNB ID.        The MME relays the request by sending the MME configuration transfer message to the candidate eNB identified by the target eNB ID.        The candidate eNB responds by sending the eNB configuration transfer message containing one or more TNL addresses to be used for SCTP connectivity with the initiating eNB, and includes other relevant information such as the source and target eNB ID.        The MME relays the response by sending the MME configuration transfer message to the initiating eNB identified by the target eNB ID.        
For the efficient X2 setup procedure between the HeNB and macro eNB, the TNL address discovery procedure may need to be defined clearly.